‘I don’t know,’ Septimus said; his own words foreign to his ears. This was his friend. ‘The chest wound is not deep, more of a slash. He does not seem to be injured internally but he’s lost a lot of blood, maybe too much.’
Lucius nodded, not really hearing the words.
‘We need to get him below decks, to close the wounds and bind him,’ Septimus continued. ‘It’s the only way to stop the bleeding.’
Again Lucius nodded but he did not move.
‘Lucius!’ Septimus snapped and the second-in-command suddenly blinked as if waking from a nightmare. He spun around.
‘You two,’ he said to two of the closest crewmen. ‘Get below and bring up some planking. I want a stretcher to bring the captain below. Baro!’
The sailor stepped forward.
‘Get your tools and then meet us below decks,’ Lucius commanded.
Baro nodded and was away.
‘Our master-sail-maker,’ Lucius explained to Septimus. ‘He has the steadiest hand and the best eye for this job.’
Septimus nodded and stood up, his concern for his friend lying unconscious on the deck suddenly giving way to anger. He pushed through the circle of sailors surrounding Atticus and found Drusus standing with a troop of legionaries guarding the three men who had brought Atticus to the Aquila. Septimus walked up to the eldest, a grey-haired man, his face weathered and aged.
‘Tell me again what happened,’ he said, his hand resting on the hilt of his sword, the muscles in his right arm bunched as if ready to strike. The man retold the events.
‘How did you know he was from the Aquila?’ Septimus asked.
‘He told us in the tavern earlier tonight,’ the man said. ‘He bought us some wine and he talked with us.’
Septimus nodded, his suspicions evaporating. If the three men had really attacked Atticus, they were unlikely to carry him back to his ship afterwards.
‘So who attacked him?’ he asked.
‘One of your own,’ the man said. ‘A legionary.’
Septimus was rocked back by the accusation. ‘A legionary? You’re sure?’
‘He’s lying dead in the street, along with one of the streettraders.’
‘A street-trader?’ Septimus asked. The whole thing made no sense. Why would a legionary attack Atticus? Or maybe it was the other way around? Perhaps Atticus started the fight.
‘Drusus,’ Septimus ordered. ‘Take a squad and follow these men back to the village. I want the legionary’s body brought back here.’
‘Hold!’
Septimus spun around. Varro was standing behind him.
‘I’ll take over here, Centurion,’ Varro said, his own tone one of barely suppressed anger. ‘Vitulus!’
The guard commander stepped forward.
‘Take two of the men and follow these villagers to Fiumicino. Do what needs to be done.’
Vitulus saluted and nodded to his men. They followed the villagers down the gang-plank and were soon lost in the darkness.
‘How is the Captain?’ Varro asked of Septimus, ‘Will he live?’
‘I don’t…’ Septimus replied, his concern for his friend overwhelming him. He shook off his misgivings. ‘He’ll survive with Fortuna’s help, Tribune.’
‘Yes…’ Varro said, drawing out the word. He looked to the main deck where the crew were carefully transferring the captain to a stretcher.
‘Centurion,’ he said, turning once more to Septimus. ‘Inform the second-in-command that he is to take charge of the crew for our departure at dawn. If necessary we will take on a new captain when we reach our destination.’
‘You intend to sail as planned?’ Septimus asked incredulously, forgetting himself and to whom he was talking. ‘But Atticus, Captain Perennis, needs to be examined by a trained physician. He needs to be transferred to the field hospital.’
‘Then he’d better be off this galley by dawn, Centurion,’ Varro said, anger once more in his voice. ‘We sail as planned.’
Septimus hesitated. To leave Atticus behind unguarded was unthinkable but to take keep him on board might equally condemn him, the uneasy motion of a galley at sea completely adverse to a wounded man.
Septimus suddenly noticed that the tribune was looking at him intently, waiting for an acknowledgment of his command. He saluted his assent and walked away from Varro, determined to keep his stride steady even as his own anger rose within him. In the light of cold military logic, Varro was right to sail with or without Atticus for no man was indispensable. But Septimus knew that Varro’s decision was not based on logic. He was taking advantage of this sudden opportunity to rid himself of Atticus, one way or another. Before tonight Septimus had looked upon Varro as a threat to his friend and he had silently vowed to watch Atticus’s back when the tribune was around. Now however he marked the tribune as an enemy, his callous disregard for Atticus reinforcing Septimus’s enmity.
CHAPTER NINE
Marcus straightened his back as he led his maniple through the main gate of the garrison fort of Brolium, the remnants of the exhausted Ninth legion finally reaching refuge in the Roman port town on the north coast of Sicily. These steps were often in Marcus’s thoughts over the past week as the Ninth slowly retreated from Thermae, in his waking nightmares when the clarion calls of alarm sounded and the Carthaginian horde attacked once more. Each time he and his men had beaten their way through. Each time the enemy had come on again, more ferocious than before, more merciless, making the legionaries pay for every step they took closer to Brolium and salvation.
Marcus had led seventy-three men out of the cauldron of Thermae. Seventy-three men, the principes and triarii of his maniple. Now less than half that number marched in his wake, many of them walking wounded, many of them fighters in name only with spirits and bodies broken by the relentless fighting of the past week. On the third day out from Thermae, news had gotten through that the Second were marching west under Tribune Tacitus in relief. The pace of the Ninth had increased in anticipation of the link-up but the promised relief had never arrived, the Carthaginians managing to hold the Second at a narrow coastal pass, frustrating their efforts to rescue the Ninth.
Dogged determination had soon descended into brutality when news of the failed relief force had reached the remaining men of the Ninth and the noble order of ‘Steady the line,’ a command that signalled that the men should stand shoulder-to-shoulder, was quickly replaced with an unspoken command that marked them all, ‘March or die’. Where once before men stood over the wounded and protected them, now they left any who could not stand, the unremitting attacks forcing them ever onwards. To stand and fight was to die and it had taken all of Marcus’s experience to maintain the cohesion of his maniple as retreat teetered on the brink of rout. More than once he had been a heartbeat away from summarily executing one of his own for insubordination, a measure that other centurions had been forced to resort to, but the IV maniple had held together, if only through loyalty to their commander.
Marcus gazed at the men of the other maniples as they began to draw up in the centre of the parade ground, the legate, Megellus, insisting on regulations even now, his iron discipline allowing for nothing less. Every maniple had been mauled as much as the IV, the rotation of the maniples on point duty exposing each to the brunt of the Carthaginian ambushes. At first those ambushes had been sporadic and uncoordinated but they had quickly become deadly effective, the narrow defiles funnelling the legionaries into unavoidable killing grounds. As the Ninth had come closer to Brolium the Carthaginians had resorted to frontal assaults, creating shield walls across the legionaries’ advance. With a humourless smile Marcus recalled with pride that the IV had broken every line and barrier the Carthaginians had dared to put before them.
Marcus watched as Megellus accepted the salute of Tacitus, the tribune of the Second, his own men forming two sides of the square formation around the parade ground. The men of the Ninth looked balefully across at them,
